THE CRAZY ONES (Episode 5) – Everybody Loves Saffron

At the start, a nervous and flustered Sydney tells Andrew that she needs her father to deal with Helena (Saffron Burrows), a beautiful client waiting for attention.

SYDNEY:How do I look?ANDREW:You look great. You’re 5 pounds of heaven in six inch heels. Look at you. You’ve got a girl crush on Helena. It’s so wonderful.SYDNEY:I do not.

Sydney (Sarah Michelle Gellar) arrives at Helena’s hotel room, not realizing that her father has gotten there first.

Simon (Robin Williams) and Zach (James Wolk) are in Simon’s overheated office (the air-conditioning is broken) contemplating a can of Pringles and how to associate it with “boobs and butt”. Sydney bursts in with the news of Helena’s arrival, causing Simon to put Andrew in charge of everything else so that he can personally assist Helena. Andrew is unaccustomed to and doesn’t like being in charge, and this fits with Simon’s approach to training people. Remember that he taught Sydney how to swim by tossing her into Lake Michigan and telling her to find the shore.

While Simon and Zach flirt with Helena, Sydney arranges to get together with her, finding it necessary to point out that it is not a date, and looking very uncomfortable about it. We discover that Sydney has had lunch with Helena previously.

Fred Melamed embraces Andrew (Hamish Linklater) passionately

When Sydney and Helena have drinks the next day, Helena mentions that she has “taken Zach for a lover”, and describes his “O-face”. Helena declines to arrange their next meeting in advance, saying she’s “more of a drop-in sort of girl”.

The BEST GELLAR MOMENT occurs when Sydney accepts Helena’s invitation to drop in (apparently the next morning). She finds her father has gotten there first and is Helena’s newest lover, and we discover that Simon wears boxers, not briefs. Before that happens, Helena describes Simon’s O-face. Sydney is aghast.

The mayonnaise jar shatters on the floor between Simon and Zach. Sydney looks on in horror.

Meanwhile, in the other sub-plot, Andrew attempts to deal with Fred Melamed (played by himself), a prima-donna voice actor with an excess of testosterone (described by Lauren as “alpha”) who is there to do an ad for, of all things, Musk. Melamed repeatedly makes hippie jokes about Andrew. When Andrew finally stands up to the much larger and somewhat intimidating Melamed, the actor clasps the young copywriter to his bosom in an intense embrace. On releasing him, Melamed says: “I was grasping a boy, and now I release a Man”. He even calls him “Mandrew”, a word which Lauren (Amanda Setton) happily repeats.

Sydney and Helena having drinks.

WHAT WE LEARN ABOUT SYDNEY: Sydney apparently made up some stuff to make Helena think she was more sophisticated, claiming that she:

Later in the episode we learn that two of these things probably never happened, and that the lesbian phase is most likely to be true. We also find out that three of Sydney’s favourite films as a child were The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, and Mary Poppins.

Simon and Zach scuffle over Helena. They wrestle symbolically with a hard-to-open jar of mayonnaise which slips from both their grasps and shatters on the floor between them. Sydney is again aghast.

Trying to explain to Helena why she has made everyone feel awkward, Simon says: “This is America. We like our sex shameful like God intended it to be. That’s why Mormons make love standing up, so the Big Guy thinks they’re dancing.”

Saffron Burroughs as Audrey Strange, who was nearly framed for murder in the Miss Marple mystery Towards Zero (2007)

In the end, alpha-male Melamed swoops in on alpha-female Helena, suggesting they go off together and change the world. Helena seems interested, and they disappear into the elevator (of destiny?). One can readily imagine them combining their talents to start a war somewhere.

NOTES

Saffron Burrows will be Veronica in the indie film QUITTERS, which is currently filming in San Francisco. The film centers on a high school student named Clark who is having trouble dealing with nearly everything about growing up, and explores the mores and the vices of upper class San Francisco society. Mira Sorvino is also in the cast. Burrows was Audrey Strange in ITV’s 2007 version of the Miss Marple story TOWARDS ZERO.

Fred Melamed stars as Sam in the 2013 film IN A WORLD, which was released on 13 September. The comedy is about a vocal coach who is motivated by her father (Melamed), to pursue her aspirations of becoming a voiceover star, but must battle sexism and a dysfunctional family to do it.